


Spell On

by TheIntelligentHufflepuff



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Dubious Morality, F/F, Gift Giving, Infidelity, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/pseuds/TheIntelligentHufflepuff
Summary: She was so focussed on the thought of cottage pie that she almost missed the unobtrusive cardboard box resting at the foot of the hall table.But notice it, she did.Cautiously, she brought herself to a halt. She closed her eyes slowly, opened them again. Focused.Now that she was properly attuned to her surroundings, Eve could feel the magic pouring off the box in lively, undulating waves. Her breath caught. Niko didn’t have a magic bone in his body; Eve hadn’t ordered any supplies in a month. Heart flying, eyes glued to the squat little box by animal instinct, Eve unlocked her phone. Her trembling finger was poised over Carolyn’s number before her rational brain kicked in and she questioned exactly what she was doing.“Come on, Eve.” she whispered to herself, doing a fairly decent job of not sounding terrified.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	Spell On

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very, very belated thank you fic for my friend who donated to some fundraising I was doing. I thought I should probs get it done before it actually is a year since I said I would do it. 
> 
> I haven't watched series 2 of Killing Eve yet, so I based this off of the first series. 
> 
> I actually like Niko, though he does come across as a little pathetically desperate. 
> 
> POTENTIAL CONTENT WARNINGS: Villanelle kisses Eve while lying on top of her, not giving her any warning or asking permission first and having just been restraining Eve physically. I recognise that this isn't necessarily something healthy and isn't something that should be replicated, particularly by people who haven't kissed before, but I thought it was suiting to the dubiousness and destructiveness of Eve and Villanelle's relationship. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this weird, short product of...something!

Eve Polastri used to love Halloween. The festivities. The food. The thick, electric buzz of magic that settled over the streets, inviting itself into every languishing nook and forgotten cranny of the human world. Now, Halloween just meant a long shift, a lot of bother, and an unscratchable itch of pent up witchcraft that would dog her for days once November began. 

As she let the front door bang shut behind her at 8am on All Saints Day 2019, Eve was feeling all that and more. The pins holding up her bun were scraping her head. A muscle in her back had been twinging on and off for a week. She missed Bill fiercely. Niko still wasn’t talking to her after their latest spat, and Eve didn’t even know if she genuinely cared. 

They still hadn’t caught Villanelle. 

Eve could see the fridge through the open sitting room door. Not even bothering to remove her drenched rain coat, Eve started to heed its siren call, stumbling like a toddler just woken up for a nap. She was so focussed on the thought of cottage pie that she almost missed the unobtrusive cardboard box resting at the foot of the hall table. 

But notice it, she did. 

Cautiously, she brought herself to a halt. She closed her eyes slowly, opened them again. Focussed. 

Now that she was properly attuned to her surroundings, Eve could feel the magic pouring off the box in lively, undulating waves. Her breath caught. Niko didn’t have a magic bone in his body; Eve hadn’t ordered any supplies in a month. Heart flying, eyes glued to the squat little box by animal instinct, Eve unlocked her phone. Her trembling finger was poised over Carolyn’s number before her rational brain kicked in and she questioned exactly what she was doing. 

“Come on, Eve.” she whispered to herself, doing a fairly decent job of not sounding terrified. 

Handbag clutched tightly in front of her, Eve edged towards the package. When it didn’t immediately explode, she crouched down next to it. After some cautious probing, she found a printed label: her name, address, and a little  _ Hermes _ logo in the corner. 

No-one would send a letter bomb through a courier service, right? 

_ Niko, I am really sorry if I get splattered all over the carpet.  _

Screwing up her courage, Eve flicked her keys over in her hand, put the tip to the tape holding the box closed, and in one swift swipe cut it open. 

Nothing happened. 

Suddenly distinctly aware of the sweat pooling under her armpits, Eve flipped the box flaps open. Inside was nothing but a nest of paper package filling and, coddled inside with all the care of a fabergé egg, one worn copy of  _ Rubyfruit Jungle _ . 

For a second, Eve simply stared at it. Then, reluctantly, she picked it up. The cover was soft, wrinkled and flaking in places. Warm. Eve trapped her lower lip under her teeth, and flicked the front cover open. The book sighed. And not just any sigh: this was a lovelorn, soft as silk, sensuous, intentful exhalation. This was the sigh of a Hollywood starlet. A sigh of pure, unadulterated, brutally supressed  _ sex _ . 

“Villanelle.” Eve murmered. Who else would it be? 

Eve was fourty years old. She was married. She should be disgusted. She  _ was  _ terrified, a cold hard clamp of muscle forming deep in her gut. But nevertheless, the sound of the very literally infernal book sent a pleasant shiver of awareness shooting down her spine. She blushed. 

And the heat of her cheeks seeped into other places. 

Just as quickly as it came, her arousal turned to agitation. Contemptuously, she tossed the book back into its box and shoved it under the shoe rack. 

She couldn’t quite bring herself to throw it away. 

**** 

“And you’re saying there was nothing else to identify it as coming from Villanelle?” Kenny pressed, young eyes wide and concerned. 

Eve pursed her lips. 

“No.” 

“Well…” Kenny frowned, fiddling with a pen “Do you...do you have it? I could try to run a tracking spell?” 

Eve blinked. 

“No, sorry.” she lied. 

She didn’t know why she did it. Or maybe she did. She was grateful to Kenny for offering to help her, of course, but she didn’t want him all over the book for hours. She didn’t want  _ anyone  _ to touch the book but her. 

That was, she reflected, possibly somewhat of a problem. 

**** 

It got worse. (Or, a traitorous voice buried deep within her whispered, better). 

A week after the first...gift, Eve received another. Same day, same time, same unassuming spot on her dusty carpet. It was an envelope this time. A postcard from the National Portrait Gallery. On one side was the picture: a painting of a woman with soft blond hair, round features, plump lips, transferred to canvas with tentative, dreamy brushstrokes by a century ago but looking so similar to Villanelle that Eve half suspected it was photoshopped. Either way, it was a message, no doubt about it; a boast, even- Villanelle was just that good that she could enter a gallery coated in cameras and came out the other end unscathed. 

It was an impressive boast. And also one that Eve should really have reported. But she didn’t, because on the other side was another message:  _ hello, baby xoxo.  _

The postcard joined the book, hidden in a bag of sanitary pads in the bathroom. 

**** 

Next came a purification pendant in delicate, glittering silver. Then gorgeous velvet heels. An air-light silk scarf, perfumed with a scent that Eve couldn’t place. 

All of them came with a note. 

All of them, Eve hid. 

**** 

“Elena…” Eve started to ask, tentatively, over sugary coffee in an overpriced, underfurnished cafe. 

“Yes?” Elena prodded, the practised uptick of her eyebrow worth a thousand words. 

Faced with Elena’s general air of competency, Eve blanched and retreated into her seat “Never mind.” 

**** 

The sixth time Eve came home expecting a gift, she found her husband instead. 

“Oh,” she said “Hello.” 

It clearly wasn’t the enthused surprise Niko was expecting. His smile fell a little, and the arms he’d raised as if part tempted to do jazz hands drooped. Eve’s chest twinged. Her cheeks pulled into a smile, and her arms pulled Niko into a hug. He buried his nose in the powdery, rain-drenched cushion of her anorak and clung on. Eve scrutinised the floor over his shoulder; nothing. She pulled back. 

“You’re home early, baby.” she smiled. 

Niko blinked at her, shocked. 

“Baby.” he repeated, clearly trying desperately to not sound hurt “Well, that’s a new one. Anyhow, I came home early to surprise you,  _ darling, _ ” Eve winced “With a date. We haven’t been on one of those in a while.” 

“No,” Eve agreed, brain running a mile a minute “We haven’t.” 

She linked her hand with his. 

****

“How do you tell if a woman’s into you?” Eve asked, fighting to not sound as nervous as she was. 

Elena laughed, nose wrinkling up the exact way Eve imagined a kitten’s would, if they had enough nose to wrinkle. 

“Haven’t got a bloody clue. But who does? My friend thought her wife was in love with another woman for, like, a month of them dating.” 

Well. Eve wouldn’t bother asking how to tell if  _ you _ were into a woman, then.

**** 

On the seventh week, Eve opened the front door with her heart in her throat. Once more, there was nothing. In fact, there was an almost suspicious amount of nothing. The shoes that normally cluttered the right side of the door had been neatly slotted into the rack, the collection of coats on the wall pegs had been ordered, the carpet had been hoovered and it even looked, at first glance, as if the uninspiring painting on the wall had been dusted. 

“Huh.” Eve said. 

She was having a rather nerve wracking bout of deja vu. 

Tensed like a rabbit in headlights, Eve trod into her home. As her gaze swept the living room and kitchen, she noticed more and more oddities. Organised bookshelves. A clear kitchen sink. A peculiar scent that Eve couldn’t quite place until her mind turned to the scarf hidden in the back of her sock drawer. 

Suddenly, she felt nauseous. With fear or...something else, she couldn’t tell. 

“You took so long. Your Netflix is logged out. I had to  _ clean. _ ” 

“Holy FU-” Eve gasped, reeling back. 

And there she was. Villanelle in the flesh, hair tied back with a handkerchief, scowling even as her eyes glimmered as beautifully and as terrifyingly as an angler fish in the Mariana Trench. Holding a bag of household crystals in one hand, and a knife in the other. 

“Niko!” Eve screamed, turning desperately to the stairs, to run, to- 

Villanelle caught her easily, heaving her up with one arm. Eve writhed, beating at her forearm with her fists, eyes fixed on the knife held in her clenched fist. Next thing she knew, Eve was being dumped on the sofa. Ignoring all dignity, she tried to flop onto the floor, to scramble away, but to no avail. Villanelle sat on her. Literally sat on her. 

_ I’m going to be sat to death.  _ Eve thought hysterically. She nearly laughed. 

Then Villanelle sighed, irritated as if by a misbehaving toddler, and said “Reeelax. I am not going to kill you. Or your husband. Partly because he is still at work. But I can kill him if you want me to.” 

“Why would I- I-” Eve couldn’t think. The adrenalin was fading from her body, leaving her tired, and sore, and frankly most of all confused. 

“I,” Villanelle enunciated, picking at her nails with the tip of the knife “Can kill your husband, if you want.” 

“Why would I want that?” 

The assassin who was still sat on top of Eve shrugged delicately, full lips pulling into a pretty pout “He is boring.” 

“Well, yes, but-” Shit. Great. Now Eve wasn’t only dissing her husband in her head, she was dissing him to the murderer who had broken into their home. 

Eve sighed.   
  


“Why are you here?”

“Because your husband is not home, and I wanted to try something.” 

Eve’s heart seized “What?” 

“This.” Villanelle replied shortly. 

Then she flipped in a fraction of a second, hands on either side of Eve’s head, pushing insistently. Eve tensed to scream, but then her mouth was occupied with...something else. Vilanelle’s lips were warm, demanding, her long fingers doing wonders as they worked themselves into the depths of Eve’s hair. Part of Eve was screaming at her to get away, but a larger part acted on instinct, chasing the kind of pleasure that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Her hands were snaking around Vilanelle’s waist before she knew it. She wanted it. She needed it. She couldn’t stop. She pushed Villanelle away with all her might. 

Clearly, Villanelle wasn’t expecting it. She toppled off Eve in a flash of blonde, righting herself a millisecond later with a petulant look. 

“What, would you prefer to do it on your bed?” 

_ Yes.  _

“No, I-.  _ No _ . I don’t know who you are, or what you are,”  _ apart from fascinating _ , Eve privately added “And I don’t know why I’m going along with all... _ this _ , unless you’ve put a spell on me.” 

“Oh.” 

Against all reason, the tiny waver in Vilanelle’s dissapointed voice made Eve  _ feel bad _ . 

_ Stay strong,  _ she told herself. 

“So?” 

“So, what?” 

“Have you put a spell on me?” 

“No.” Villanelle shook her head, crawling back to hover inches above Eve’s body. 

“I don’t have to.” she whispered. 

Eve shivered, following her gaze down, down, down to- A large metal buckle sat on Vilanelle’s belt. That wouldn’t seem unusual, if Eve didn’t recognise the characters engraved in it. Her eyes snapped back to Villanelle’s. 

“Are you in a coven?” 

Villanelle stared at her for a second, hazel eyes wide. 

Caught off guard.

Whoever said Eve wasn’t good at her job could- 

“Way to ruin the mood I worked so hard on.” Villanelle griped, before proceeding to disappear into thin air in a gust of wind that ruffled the curtains. 

Eve sat up. 

“Villanelle?” she called, cautiously. No response. 

Suspiciously, Eve closed her eyes and searched the vicinity for any trace of a magical presence that wasn’t hers. Apart from the lingering haze from Vilanelle’s crystals, there was nothing. She was truly gone. 

Unsure whether to cheer or cry, Eve collapsed on the sofa, head in her hands. It was going to take her a long, long time to unpack everything that had happened that evening. And she needed about two bottles of red to do it. 

**** 

The next (late) morning, Eve strode into the office with new purpose. 

She was going to get her girl. 


End file.
